---
title: A collapsing core can become a neutron star, only about 20 km across… — How stars die · tree and pragmatics
description: A collapsing core can become a neutron star, only about 20 km across but heavier than the Sun, so a teaspoon of it would weigh billions of tonnes. Who acts: collapsing core, teaspoon. A sentence of the lesson «How stars die» of the space course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and t
---

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# How stars die, sentence 12

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A collapsing core can become a neutron star, only about 20 km across but heavier than the Sun, so a teaspoon of it would weigh billions of tonnes.

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**Who acts:** collapsing core, teaspoon · **What happens:** collapse, become, weigh · **To what, where:** neutron star, billions

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This is a sentence of the lesson «How stars die» of the space course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (collapsing core, teaspoon), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:space:019-how-stars-die.lesson:12
# text = A collapsing core can become a neutron star, only about 20 km across but heavier than the Sun, so a teaspoon of it would weigh billions of tonnes.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = space
# lesson = 019-how-stars-die.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	collapsing	collapse	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	amod	_	_
3	core	core	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	neutron	neutron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	star	star	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	xcomp	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	only	only	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
11	about	about	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	20	20	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	km	km	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
14	across	across	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	heavier	heavy	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	13	parataxis	_	_
17	than	than	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	Sun	Sun	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
21	so	so	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	teaspoon	teaspoon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nmod	_	_
26	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	weigh	weigh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
28	billions	billion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obj	_	_
29	of	of	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	tonnes	tonne	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nmod	_	_
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **collapse** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **become** | can | a collapsing core | a neutron star and 20 km |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **weigh** | would | a teaspoon of star | billions of tonnes |  |  |  |  | vn register-54.1-2-1 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme billion=Value |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:space:019-how-stars-die.lesson:12`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

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